Mentation test method and mentation test apparatus

Abstract

A mentation test method that can test mentation of a human such as conjecture of brain's mentation age, discrimination of early stage of dementia and prediction of onset of dementia in addition to diagnosis of prediction probability of onset of dementia and screening of mental functions of senile dementia patients, decision of the effect of rehabilitation of the aftereffects of cerebrovascular disfunction, investigation of the therapeutic effects of medicines and side effects such as sleepiness, testing of degree of intoxication, testing of peripheral attention visual field, testing of cerebral dominant hemisphere, testing of various psychoneurosis such as schizophrenia and cerebrovascular disorder (syndrome and diagnosis, and decision of the effects of rehabilitation and treatment), and check of the degree of fatigue.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION1. Field of the InventionThe present invention relates to a method for testing mentation of humans, and a mentation test apparatus. More specifically, the present invention relates to a highly reproducible and reliable mentation test method that is able to sensitively test human mentation without being affected by intelligence, educational carrier and the effects of repeated learning, and a mentation test apparatus.2. Description of the Background ArtA mentation test method called TMT (Trail-Making-Test) has been used for finding diseases such as cerebrovascular disorder, schizophrenia and dementia. In this method, test subjects are given a task to sequentially line the figures of 1 to 25 randomly distributed on a sheet of A4 paper within a period as short as possible in a manner similar to one stroke drawing. While the time required for a test subject to complete the task, or to gain a score, is recognized to be affected by the intelligence quotient of th...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

While the display device comprising a screen for displaying targets is not particularly restricted so long as the display device is able to switch the display image on the screen for every response of the test subject, it is preferable that the display device can quickly switch the screen and is excellent in the degree of freedom for setting image contents.

It is of course possible to set various functions other than those described above such as a function for allowing the emergence pattern (display positions), color, shape, size and background color of the targets and dummy targets to change, by appropriately selecting the data stored in the data base and control program in the image control device.

Problems solved by technology

However, it is impossible in the currently available TMT method to analyze what factors have affected to what extent on the decrease of the score, thereby making it impossible to assess the working memory ability of aged persons and dementia patients.

Images